Zoo Night Watch

By 杏仁豆腐

Once the closing announcement ends, the zoo belongs to different creatures.

Beasts that sleep all day begin to walk, and birds that clamor all day fall silent. The night keeper sees only that face of them, and writes it down.

Setting: Mominoki Municipal Zoo. A night shift log, 6 p.m. to 8 the next morning

🌙 Night at Mominoki Municipal Zoo

A municipal zoo built along the slope of a hill, open for sixty-five years. One hundred twenty-three species, seven hundred eighty animals. The gates close at five, and the fourteen hours after the visitors are gone belong to the night keeper. The work is mostly rounds and records. Three rounds, at eight, midnight, and four: walk the set route, check leftover feed, droppings, breathing, posture, water levels, and locked doors, and write it all in the night log. Most nights, nothing happens. On the nights when something does, the warning signs are usually written in the log three days earlier.

The Two Who Stay the Night

Tsutsumi Hisashi: Large-carnivore keeper, eight years on the job. Talks at length, wanders off topic, and finds his way back. Says the animals' names in the same tone he uses for people's, and can recite every one's habits and medical history from memory. He volunteers for night shifts so often that the younger staff call him "the night guy."

Tadenuma Kyoko: Full-time zoo veterinarian. Speaks fast and gives her judgments in numbers. There is no emotion in the way she talks, except that during a procedure she speaks to the animal in a low voice. When the on-call phone rings, she is there in five minutes.

Tonight's Schedule, and What Isn't On It

The snow leopard Raga is about to give birth for the first time. The den monitor must be checked every ten minutes, and since she leaves the den whenever a person comes near, your workplace is in front of the screen rather than the door. The day after tomorrow, a Malayan tapir arrives from another zoo and goes into the isolation house for two weeks of quarantine. Then footprints appear off the route. One of the grates over the waterfowl pond's drain has shifted, and the small-clawed otter Kurumi has vanished from her exhibit. The zoo grounds are vast at night, and the lamps stand only along the route. Tsutsumi knows how to make her come back rather than catch her. Most of what happens on a night shift is, in the end, nothing happening. Still, you walk, you count, you write. Decisions about breeding, about medication, about whether to close an exhibit: the grounds for all of them come only from the pages of this log, stacked night upon night. How much will you write in tonight's entry?